Virtualisation Benefits

Why use Virtualisation technologies and how to glean the benefits of virtualisation?

What is Virtualisation?

Virtualisation is the ability to run multiple operating systems in a manner where the operating system is abstracted from the underlying hardware; this is achieved through the use of Virtualisation Software. This virtualisation software layer is generically referred to as a hypervisor.

So what is the benefit of this approach?

The majority of today’s server hardware is capable of running a lot more than just one operating system at a time. Therefore, by using Virtualising Software, you will be able to run a number of operating system instances or virtual machines, on the same hardware. This ensures that you are able to make better use of the underling hardware. It also provides an easier path for hardware upgrades as the virtual machines can be easily moved from one piece of hardware to another.

Virtualisation also gives you more options when it comes to planning to for disaster recovery as Virtual machines can easily be restored to another piece of server hardware and service restored in the event of a major failure.

Who uses virtualisation technologies?

Virtually any business requiring more than one server can make use of Virtualisation to improve their return on investment. Almost all cloud offerings make use of virtualised services. This includes Microsoft Azure and Office 365, Amazon Web services and Google Apps. Desktop operating systems can also be virtualised and this is used extensively in the medical industry

So how can you benefit from virtualisation?

As can be in the above paragraphs, any time that you need more than one server, you can benefit from Virtualisation. Below is a list of some of the servers that you may need in your business, many of which do not co-exist or for security reasons you don’t want running together.

Active directory server (domain controller)

Additional domain controller for redundancy

Remote access server

SQL database server

Mail and Exchange server

Web and/or FTP server

Firewall/Proxy server

You could have all of these running together on a single piece of hardware as if they were on their own.

Conclusion

In a perfect world, one server would be able to perform every task. The reality is however vastly different. Separate server instances are required for different applications for a number of reasons, sometimes certain applications do not co-exist well together and separate server instances are preferred from a security perspective for internet facing tasks etc. Virtualisation makes these options more readily available to you without incurring additional hardware costs thereby ensuring that the underlying hardware in use is properly utilised.

At Premium Business IT, we have significant experience in the deploying and monitoring of numerous virtualisation technologies. We are able to assess your existing workloads and migrate them to a virtualised environment for you. This may be on premises or in the cloud.

For more information on Virtualisation or for assistance with your IT challenges give Premium Business IT a call on 07 56314365.